"Posting Date" is pretty clear, but what is the Register column "Date"?

rwhtx

It is seldom the "Transaction Date" and often the same date as the Posting Date. Given that, what use is it and why is "Transaction Date" apparently not an option?

Chris_QPW

If you manually enter/entered by a reminder a transaction, then the main Date field will be that date, and should not change even if you download a transaction and match to the existing transaction in the register.

If on the other hand, there wasn't any transaction in the register that the downloaded transaction matched to, the Date field will be set to the downloaded posting date.

EDIT.  Note the "transaction date" that the financial institution has isn't sent to Quicken.  What's more the transaction date might not be the date you want either in some cases.  For example, you send a check and put into the Quicken register with that date.  This date will not be the "transaction date" that the financial institution has.  Their transaction date will be the date that the check gets to them.

q_lurker

“Date” should be the transaction date. If you manually enter or enter per scheduled entries, you control that. 

If you rely on downloads from financial institution to make that entry, you are initially at their mercy.  Most often it will be the posting date. Specific to a hand written check, the bank has no other option. They don’t pay any attention to the date you wrote the check. 

But in all cases, you can override or correct the entry as you see fit. I do that in almost all cases. I want to know what day I was at the grocery, the hardware, the pharmacy making the purchase; not the day or two later when the cc payment cleared. 

Chris_QPW

If you manually enter/entered by a reminder a transaction, then the main Date field will be that date, and should not change even if you download a transaction and match to the existing transaction in the register.

If on the other hand, there wasn't any transaction in the register that the downloaded transaction matched to, the Date field will be set to the downloaded posting date.

EDIT.  Note the "transaction date" that the financial institution has isn't sent to Quicken.  What's more the transaction date might not be the date you want either in some cases.  For example, you send a check and put into the Quicken register with that date.  This date will not be the "transaction date" that the financial institution has.  Their transaction date will be the date that the check gets to them.

Chris_QPW

I have been informed by one of the SuperUsers that they have seen the transaction date being downloaded/used in the Date field for one of his Express Web Connect accounts.  I personally have never seen that, but there it is.

So, I will revise my statement to something like "if you don't enter the Date field with manual entry or a reminder then you really have look at what happens on an account/financial institution/connection method basis."  There isn't any kind of "standard" on it.  And if you use Sync to Mobile/Web that also might change it.